A first step toward becoming a better analytical thinker and writer is to become more aware of your own thinking processes, building on skills that you already possess, and eliminating habits that get in the way.

1. Counterproductive Habits of Mind
by Alberto Mahauad-Campodónico

2. Productive thinking is a frame of mind, a set
of habits for observing and making sense of the world. But, there’s also a counterproductive frame of mind with its own set of habits.

3. A first step toward becoming a better analytical thinker and writer is to become more aware of your own thinking processes, building on skills that you already possess, and eliminating habits that get in the way.

4. Are children more curious and ingenious than adults?

5. Some people, especially the very young, are good at noticing things. They see things that the rest of us don’t see or have ceased to notice.

6. But why is this? Is it just that people become duller as they get older?
The problem is not age but habit.

7. We organize our lives so that we can function more efficiently, we condition ourselves to see in more predictable ways and to tune out things that are not immediately relevant to our needs.

8. You can test this theory by considering what you did and didn’t notice this morning on the way to class. Following a routine for moving through the day can be done with minimal engagement of either the brain or the senses.

9. So, what’s wrong with that?

10. Growing up we all become increasingly desensitized to the world around us; we tend to forget the specific things that get us to feel and think in particular ways.

11. We respond to our experience with a limited range of generalizations, with preconceived and collectively considered opinions or feelings—that is, prejudices.

12. A lot of what passes for thinking is merely reacting: right/wrong, good/bad, loved
it/hated it, couldn’t relate to it, boring.

13. In its most primitive form, the “judgment reflex” is like a switch. It predetermines and overrides any subsequent thinking we might do.

14. Offer a counterargument and be told, huffily, “I’m entitled to my opinion.” Why is this so?

15. It is okay to have opinions, but dangerous to give too many of them protected-species status, walling them off into a reserve, not to be touched by reasoning or evidence.

16. Some things we must take on faith. But not even our most sacred convictions are harmed by thinking.

17. Listen and observe. Do not judge or decide something without having all the facts. This will prevent you from reaching unwarranted conclusions.

18. Rephrase questions such as “either/or” and “agree/disagree” asking “To what extent?” Most subjects cannot be adequately considered in terms of only two options.

19. Try eliminating the word “should” for a while. The analytical habit of mind is characterized by the words “why”, “how”, and “what”.

20. Try this. Ask someone about their favorite music band or TV series. Then, ask them why they feel that way about it. See if you can get a straight answer out of them.

21. Vagueness and generality are major blocks to thinking because they allow you to dismiss everything you’ve read and heard except the general idea you’ve arrived at.

22. Your generalizations are often sites where you stopped thinking prematurely, not the “answers” you’ve thought they were.

23. Train yourself to be more self-conscious about where your generalizations come from. Trace your general impressions and attitudes back to their concrete causes.

24. You might also try eliminating evaluative adjectives—those that offer judgments with no data. “Green” is a descriptive, concrete adjective. It offers something we can experience. “Beautiful” is an evaluative adjective. It offers only judgment.

25. Are you in favor or against bullfighting?

26. Overpersonalizers tend to make personal experiences and prejudices an unquestioned standard of value.

27. It is surprisingly difficult to break the habit of treating our points of view as self-evidently true— not just for us but for everyone.

28. What is “common sense” for one person, and so not even in need of explaining, can be quite uncommon and not so obviously sensible to someone else.

29. More often than not, common sense is a phrase that really means “what seems obvious to me and therefore should be obvious to you.”

30. This is a habit of mind called “naturalizing your assumptions.” The word naturalize in this context means you are representing—and seeing—your own assumptions as natural, as simply the way things are (and ought to be).

31. Try an oppositional stance to the claim. Thinking comparatively, helps you see what implicit ideas the claim seems to assume to be true.

32. REFERENCES
Rosenwasser , David & Jill Stephen . (2009).
Writing Analytically, 5th edition.
Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth